David Petraeus was forced to resign from the CIA, but so far General David Allen, right, has the support of the president. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The news that retired army General David Petraeus, the most celebrated military officer in a generation, was resigning from his position as director of the CIA due to an extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell hit Washington, DC with the force of a detonation last Friday. As the salacious details emerged over the weekend, most observers waited for the proverbial other shoe to drop.

That shoe may have fallen Tuesday morning, when it was reported that Marine General John Allen, America's top commander in Afghanistan, was swept up in the FBI's investigation for "inappropriate communication" with Jill Kelley, the woman who unintentionally set this sad, sordid story in motion (with her complaint about email harassment, apparently by Broadwell).

Americans, like everyone else, love a good sex scandal – as a result, this story has eclipsed other more serious issues, like the so-called fiscal cliff, which the lame duck Congress must avert, or the ongoing civil war in Syria. Still, the scandal shines a needed spotlight on the behavior of America's senior military officers and opens a window into the state of civil-military relations.

The reactions of America's fighting men and women in Afghanistan at the media circus that has engulfed their previous and current commanders likely range from "Who cares? I've just returned from an eight hour patrol" to "I guess the rules don't apply to generals." Interactions between generals and junior enlisted are usually limited to occasions when the former visit the latter to "check on the men". The reality is that these visits are typically highly-choreographed events that junior enlisted prepare for by excessive cleaning, among other mundane tasks, to ensure the unit looks good for the general.

Although it's unlikely that this one scandal will have an appreciable effect on morale within the ranks – watching Afghan soldiers under your tutelage shoot your friends has a far more deleterious effect on morale than some general's flirtatious emails – it points to a larger problem in the military: the perception among junior officers and enlisted that senior officers are held to different standards than the troops they lead, both personally and professionally.

"A private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war."

This isn't to suggest that America's senior officers are wholly to blame for mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan – their civilian supervisors in the White House and on Capitol Hill share far too much blame for simplistic, single-cause conclusions like that – but it's telling that not a single US general was relieved of duty since 2001 for military incompetence. The only casualty was a Marine colonel fired by his division commander during the drive to Baghdad.

The recent spate of generals gone wild has led some to ask if America's senior officer corps has been broken by a decade of war. The short answer is no. The vast majority of senior officers comprise hardworking, dedicated public servants doing their jobs. And it's highly unlikely that junior officers and enlisted soldiers and sailors are preparing to march on the Pentagon anytime soon.

All the same, senior defense civilians need to move immediately by holding senior officers to the same – no, a higher – standard than the men and women they lead. Rank has its privileges, but it also has responsibilities.

The larger problem, however, rests with society writ large. Following the lead of our elected leaders, we praise the military to the point where we treat its leaders as saviors who can do no wrong. We allow those leaders to evade scrutiny commensurate with their responsibility as guardians of the lives of America's young fighting men and women. We do so because, in the words of critic and essayist William Deresiewicz, "obeisance to the uniform [has] become the shibboleth of patriotism."